David Von Pein

Jim H., Why do you say "J. Edgar Hoover" made the mistake regarding the $12.78 price? The PRESS and the MEDIA were spreading the "$12.78" price around. Not Hoover. BTW, I didn't draw the circle in that ad.

What's even more "utterly AMAZING", Jim H., is that you ascribe something sinister to something so easy to figure out in a non-sinister fashion. The press just kept repeating the same incorrect price for the gun. The $12.78 figure was the number in BIG print in the Nov. '63 Klein's ads, so that's the number the media (and Curry) went with. Simple as that.

Because they simply kept repeating the main $12.78 price for the rifle (without the scope) that was originally reported by Chief Curry on TV on 11/23/63. Nobody in the media took the time in those first few days to seek out what the price was WITH the scope included. Big deal. There's no cover-up there. Just a lack of details regarding the "With Scope" price. Again .... big deal. It's only a "big deal" to rabid conspiracy theorists like you, Jim.

Gee, what a surprise.

I'll let you decide..... jfk-archives.blogspot.com / The-Stupid-Things-James-DiEugenio-Believes

Utter nonsense, Jim. The media was reporting that the murder weapon had a SCOPE on it as early as just a few hours after the assassination. There are even several FILMS (broadcast to the public on television on November 22) that show the scope attached to the rifle -- such as Tom Alyea's film, which was shown in its "wet" form (i.e., totally unedited) on WFAA-TV on the afternoon of the 22nd, with the film being narrated at various times by Bob Clark and Bert Shipp and Bob Walker, with the newsmen even pointing out the obvious fact that the rifle had a SCOPE on it. And Walter Cronkite, on Nov. 22 and 23, talked about the rifle's "sniper scope attachment". And Dan Rather, at about 7:00 PM on Nov. 22, narrated a film showing Lt. Carl Day walking through the DPD corridor carrying the rifle, with Rather telling the CBS audience that the rifle "has a four-power telescopic sight on it" (with the scope easily visible in the film as well; see video below).... http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/01/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-591.html#An-Italian-Gun And the newspapers were reporting about the "telescopic sight" on the rifle as early as Day 1 (November 22) as well. Here's an example from a Portland, Oregon, paper: Portland-Oregon-Newspaper-Front-Page-November-22-1963.jpg Here's another newspaper (also dated 11/22/63), showing the same information about the "telescopic sight" on the rifle: Sante-Fe-New-Mexico-Newspaper-Front-Page-November-22-1963.jpg And yet another: Oxnard-California-Newspaper-Front-Page-11-22-63.jpg Those newspapers were reporting the early erroneous info about the rifle being a "7.65 Mauser". But each paper also mentioned the fact that the assassination rifle was equipped with a "telescopic sight". That Oxnard paper was even correctly reporting, as early as November 22 (the date on the paper), that the rifle was an "Italian" gun. So, as all these examples illustrate, Jim DiEugenio doesn't know what he's talking about. I guess Jim thinks that just because the media was reporting the $12.78 price for the assassination weapon for a few days beyond Nov. 22, that means that "the entire media...somehow missed the fact that the rifle the DPD had was equipped with a scope". But if that's Jimmy's belief, he looks awfully silly, because I just provided a bunch of examples showing that the media WAS reporting on the "scope" within hours of the assassination.

I don't think ANY testimony should be changed or altered. But my guess is that James Cadigan answered the same question twice, and the revised answer was used in the transcript. Is it your contention that Cadigan never uttered the words "No, this is a latent fingerprint matter"? Do you think the WC (Dulles?) just inserted those words into the mouth of Cadigan?

Sandy, I have no idea. But we can easily see that the "3-13-63" Klein's sheet exactly matches (to the penny) the "2-15-63" extra copy of the deposit slip: http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=1138#relPageId=730

When you have to resort to such massive allegations of constant "alteration" and "falsification" and "fabricated" stuff, it's a good sign that you've reached a level of deep desperation from which you can likely never escape. In other words....since you've got no evidence of your own to prove any conspiracy, you have no choice but to try and invalidate the real evidence in the case. (The Hidell money order and CE399 being two prime examples, among dozens of others.) When I see words like "all of it is phony", it's a sure sign that the CTer who wrote such nonsense has a very weak case for "conspiracy". So he's got to attack the legitimacy of ALL of the evidence. A very tiresome (and predictable) way to approach any murder case.

Why on Earth can't the conspiracy believers of the world figure out something so incredibly simple as the $12.78 vs. $21.45 discrepancy without resorting to terms like "imaginary" or "fabricate" or "invent"? Reprise..... JIM HARGROVE SAID: Warren Commission loyalists want us to believe that this uncashed, unendorsed money order is legitimate proof of purchase by “A. Hidell” of a rifle that was shipped to Hidell via a Dallas P.O. Box under the name of “Oswald,” contrary to U.S. postal regulations, for a price of… well… first it was $12.78 for a rifle without a scope as pointed out by dozens of American dailies for nearly a week after the assassination. As one example of many, a Nov. 23 article by the New York Times wire service, picked up in daily newspapers in many cities, including the Nov. 24 Salt Lake Tribune, reported the following: “Handwriting, analyzed by the Federal Bureau of Investigation in Washington as Oswald's on an assumed-name order to a Chicago mail order house last March 20 for a $12.78 rifle, similar to the assassination weapon.” When the saga of Dial Ryder and the scope didn't pan out, the FBI apparently lost all its reports of a $12.78 rifle without a scope. But, like magic, "Oswald's handwriting" suddenly appeared on a new and improved money order, this time for $21.45 for a rifle with a scope. A magic money order to purchase a magic rifle that shot magic bullets. It was truly an age of miracles! DAVID VON PEIN SAID: Jim, There's no "magic" or "miracles" of any kind involved here at all. And there's no sinister or underhanded cover-up involved either. The reason why the media was reporting the $12.78 cost for the rifle (sans the scope) was quite simple --- they were simply referring to the Klein's ads that were currently running in various magazines in November of 1963. So they were merely reporting on the CURRENT price of the gun in their TV and newspaper reports, without bothering to factor in the proper "With Scope" price. Big deal. http://3.bp.blogspot.com/-8qPwzVnkaIQ/UBsE30QLFYI/AAAAAAAAGW0/oTfplUk3gZA/s1600/Klein's-Ads.png As for any "new and improved money order, this time for $21.45 for a rifle with a scope" --- that's a lot of baloney too, because as early as 11/23/63, we find documentation showing that a money order that was definitely handled by Klein's Sporting Goods AND the First National Bank of Chicago in the amount of $21.45 was recovered at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia, on the night of November 23rd, the day after the assassination. This documentation is all laid out in a goodly amount of detail in Commission Document #75 and Commission Document #87. So, Jim Hargrove, do you think that the FBI and Secret Service reports that appear in CD75 and CD87 are phony documents of some kind? And do you think that a money order in the amount of $21.45 was NOT actually found at the Records Center in Alexandria at all? Did the Secret Service get together with the FBI guys to make sure they were on the same page regarding putting the $21.45 figure in both of their reports? And then there's Waldman #7 too, which also shows the $21.45 figure, which perfectly matches the amount on the money order and the amounts shown in CD75 and CD87. Waldman 7 was found in the Klein's files (as Bill Waldman confirmed). So, should I believe that William Waldman was part of the "conspiracy" too? Is there ANYBODY who wasn't trying to railroad Lee Harvey? http://jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/10/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-1058.html

Gary Mack of the Sixth Floor Museum At Dealey Plaza interviewed Buell Wesley Frazier on June 21, 2002 (total running time of 2 hours): http://www.c-span.org/video/?287933-1/kennedy-assassination-buell-wesley-frazier-part-1 http://www.c-span.org/video/?287933-101/kennedy-assassination-buell-wesley-frazier-part-2 A few notes.... The most interesting parts of the above 2002 interview with Wesley Frazier are when he totally contradicts some of the things he said in 1963 and 1964. For example: In the 2002 interview, Frazier actually tells Gary Mack that he saw Lee Harvey Oswald "5 to 10 minutes" AFTER the assassination, as Lee was walking south on Houston Street. Wesley said he then lost Lee in the crowd after Oswald had crossed Houston Street. Frazier said he thought Lee was "going to get him a sandwich or something, so I really didn't think anything about it". But when we look at Frazier's 11/22/63 affidavit (which was written by Wesley within hours of the assassination), we find this: "I did not see Lee anymore after about 11:00 AM today [11/22/63], and at that time, we were both working, and we were on the first floor." -- Buell Wesley Frazier Frazier also completely changed his mind in 2002 about the source of the three gunshots he heard on November 22nd. He told Mack in 2002 that the shots came from "above" him. But in 1964, he told the Warren Commission that the shots came from the railroad tracks on top of the Triple Underpass. Wesley even drew a circle on a Commission exhibit (CE347) to indicate the area where he said he heard the shots coming from: "These railroad tracks there is a series of them that come up over this, up over this overpass there, and from where I was standing, I say, it is my true opinion, that is what I thought, it sounded like it came from over there, in the railroad tracks." -- Buell Wesley Frazier; 1964 Warren Commission Testimony So much for 39-year-old recollections, huh? Maybe it would be better to simply not interview witnesses thirty-nine years after an event has taken place. You just never know what a witness is going to "remember" after so many intervening years. Such "newer" interviews are interesting to see and listen to, but many of the recollections being recounted by the witness become garbled, semi-incoherent, and inconsistent with things the same witness has said in previous interviews and depositions. And such inconsistency only tends to muddy the waters even more when it comes to investigating the JFK murder case. I'm guessing that Gary Mack was in a mild state of shock when Wesley Frazier told him on 6/21/02 that he had seen Lee Oswald walking along Houston Street "5 to 10 minutes" after the assassination. If that were true, of course, it would mean that Oswald did not leave the Texas School Book Depository Building by way of the front entrance, but instead he left via the back door of the building. I, however, place more faith in what Wes Frazier said on the day of the assassination itself, when he said he did not see Lee Harvey Oswald at all "after about 11:00 AM today". David Von Pein January 25, 2010

Yeah, Greg. Either that, or we could.... Merely accept the amazing and incredible notion that Gregory Burnham doesn't know as much as he thinks he does about the process by which United States Postal Money Orders were handled and processed by U.S. banking institutions (like the First National Bank of Chicago, Illinois) in the year nineteen hundred and sixty-three. Guess which option is more likely to be the accurate one?

And yet they forgot that very important First National bank stamp on their forged PMO. My, how careless. BTW, Jon, who do you think it was who managed to plant the forged PMO in the exact place it needed to be planted in order to make it seem like the PMO completed a normal and non-conspiratorial journey through the American banking system? Or do you think the man who found the processed money order at the Federal Records Center in Alexandria, Virginia—an employee of the National Archives and Records Service by the name of Robert H. Jackson (see Commission Document No. 87)—merely pretended to find the Hidell Postal Money Order at the Records Center near Washington? Was Robert Jackson of the National Archives a big part of the plot to frame Lee Oswald with that $21.45 money order that you are so convinced is "a provable fraud" which "never moved through the banking system"? Mr. Jackson must have been a huge part of the plot and frame-up, right Jon? Because if he wasn't, then Jackson really did find a Postal Money Order for $21.45 with the name "A. Hidell" on it at the Records Center storage facility near Washington on 11/23/63. And how could it have ended up there if it "never moved through the banking system"?

This is hilarious (in the usual Pot/Kettle sense of ironic arguments advanced by conspiracy theorists). Greg Burnham is actually suggesting via the above quote that the LNers who believe that the Hidell money order is a real and genuine document are placing their belief in something that is "unreasonably complex". So Greg is actually saying in this instance regarding the Postal Money Order that the belief that something ISN'T fake is far more of an "unreasonably complex solution" than the belief that the item in question IS a fake. Greg has things backward (as per the CTer norm). Because in order to believe that the PMO is a fraud involves believing in a FAR more "unreasonably complex solution" than the LNers' belief that the Postal Money Order is simply what it appears to be -- i.e., a perfectly normal and legitimate and non-sinister financial instrument that was utilized by Lee Harvey Oswald to pay for a rifle that he ordered from Klein's Sporting Goods in March of 1963. But the belief that the PMO is a fraud means that virtually everything connected to the money order was manufactured by conspirators --- from Oswald's handwriting, to the Klein's stamp, to the 10-digit number stamped on the front of the PMO, etc. And yet I'm supposed to think, per what Greg Burnham just said above, that such mass fakery is MORE of a reasonable conclusion to reach—and a less complex one—than a conclusion that involves no fakery at all. Incredible topsy-turvy logic there. William of Ockham just had a stroke!

Jon, Are you actually suggesting that you have provided PROOF that the Hidell money order is a "fraud"? Really? You must be joking. Please tell me, Jon, how the presence of a stamp placed on the Hidell PMO by the First National Bank of Chicago would prove that First National "got credited for its payment to Klein's"? Even if such a bank stamp had been on the Hidell money order, it certainly wouldn't be proof that First National got credited for the $21.45 face value of the PMO. Such a stamp would have been put on the PMO by First National itself, not by the Federal Reserve Bank. Seems to me that the File Locator Number, placed on the money order by the Federal Reserve Bank AFTER the PMO had been handled by both Klein's and First National Bank, is a very strong indication that First National was, indeed, credited for the money order. I also find it very humorous that Jon G. Tidd seems to think that the lack of a bank stamp on the back of the money order somehow completely dismantles this huge pile of accumulated evidence that all points toward Lee Harvey Oswald as the sole assassin of President Kennedy. That's one hell of a powerful Postal Money Order, huh?

We don't know whether Oswald listed "Hidell" on his application for Dallas P.O. Box #2915 or not, because that section of the application was thrown away when Oswald closed out the box. (Although many CTers think that Harry Holmes was lying about that, too. But, what's new?) Lots more about LHO's P.O. boxes here.... jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2010/07/post-office-applications.html jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2014/07/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-739.html

As I've posted previously about a dozen times, CD75 (aka CD7) explains that the PMO was recovered in Washington/(Alexandria), which is where 75% of the PMOs were being sent at the time by the Chicago FRB. Only 25% were sent to Kansas City.... http://www.maryferrell.org/showDoc.html?docId=10477#relPageId=673

Sure. But Oswald very likely never noticed the (four-inch) difference after getting his 40-inch rifle in the mail from Klein's. Only if you want to totally ignore the fact that we KNOW that Klein's stopped advertising the 36-inch rifle at just about the same time Oswald placed his order with Klein's in March. So it seems quite clear, via the Klein's ads that appeared in American Rifleman and other magazines after February 1963, that Klein's WAS running out of the 36-inchers at approximately the time of the Oswald/Hidell order. The "evidence" that Tom Neal is looking for is available in the Klein's ads themselves. Here's the list of Klein's ads, supplied by Gary Mack in 2010, that appeared in American Rifleman magazine in the year 1963: Jan 63 -- p. 61 -- 36-inch “6.5 Italian Carbine” -- $12.88 -- $19.95 (with scope) Feb 63 -- p. 65 -- Same ad as above Mar 63 -- No ad Apr 63 -- p. 55 -- 40-inch “6.5 Italian Carbine” -- $12.88 -- $19.95 (with scope) May 63 -- Missing pp. 63-66 Jun 63 -- p. 59 -- 40-inch “6.5 Italian Carbine” -- $12.88 -- $19.95 (with scope) Jul 63 -- p. 67 -- 40-inch “6.5 Italian Carbine” -- $12.78 -- $19.95 (with scope) Aug 63 -- p. 79 -- Same ad as above Sep 63 -- p. 89 -- Same ad as above Oct 63 -- p. 85 -- Same ad as above Nov 63 -- No ad Dec 63 -- No ad

Friendly reminder: Whether Klein's was advertising the 36-inch weapon or the 40-inch variant of the rifle, Klein's still classified them BOTH as a "CARBINE". The proof is in the ads themselves. It says "Carbine" clear as day in BOTH the 36-inch and 40-inch ads....

Sandy, The regulation says that cash letters "may" be used by the sending bank. It doesn't say it "MUST" be done that way. Why couldn't First National have a certain way of processing checks and a different procedure for processing Postal Money Orders? "MAY" doesn't equal "MUST". Just as "SHOULD" does not mean "MUST".

Probably because you're talking about CHECKS and not POSTAL MONEY ORDERS in this example, Sandy. That's why. Big difference. The First National Bank of Chicago very likely handled Postal Money Orders differently (in bulk) than they did checks.

How could such a thing EVER be proved here in 2016---even if there were First National bank stamps all over the PMO? Once again, CTers are asking (and expecting) too much from the evidence in the JFK case. Like when DiEugenio actually expects a Dallas post office employee to remember (in November) handing a package to an ordinary customer named Oswald (in March). It's crazy to expect that such a routine everyday activity would be singled out and recalled eight months after it occurred. But Jimmy expects it nonetheless.

Klein's simply ran out of 36-inch rifles, Jim. That fact couldn't be more obvious. Especially when you look at the info Gary Mack supplied me in 2010 from the American Rifleman ads. Plus: the stock numbers match exactly. On the Klein's ordering coupon, Oswald ordered Catalog No. C20-T750. And Waldman #7 confirms that Oswald/"Hidell" was shipped that exact Catalog number -- C20-T750.... Why do you continue to sing the "Wrong Rifle" tune, Jim? You know that a perfectly logical explanation exists to reconcile the differences. Why pretend otherwise?

But, Jon, if the Hidell PMO was represented on a bulk deposit slip, why wouldn't that satisfy the Federal Reserve Bank requirement for bank stamps? Please explain why such a bulk arrangement would not suffice?

Jon, First National's bank stamp was very likely present on a "cash letter" that accompanied a batch of bulk Postal Money Orders, one of which was the famous Hidell CE788 PMO. (IMHO.) COMPLETE ARCHIVED "MONEY ORDER" DISCUSSION: jfk-archives.blogspot.com/2015/10/jfk-assassination-arguments-part-1058.html